


Gone

by nightrose



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:27:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightrose/pseuds/nightrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After this day, there's only one question between them. The TARDIS takes the Tenth Doctor to meet Koschei, immediately after Last of the Time Lords.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone

Koschei sits glumly in the front of their house.

Any minute now.

Any minute now, he'll hear the sound of that broken TARDIS. Any minute, his beloved will be muttering apologies and begging him to come along. Any minute, this will all be cleared up. Any minute, Theta will come back.

There is just no way that Thete is gone. Not really gone. Theta couldn't do that to him. Their love is supposed to be forever. 'til the end of time.

*************

Nine hundred years later, the Doctor walks away from the Master's funeral pyre. 

He'll come back.

Of course he will. The Master is the only one who has always, always come back. And this time he may be even more homicidal. He may be oddly gentle, making worlds for them to share or trying to lay the universe at the Doctor's feet. He may try to kill him, or torture his friends, or obliterate galaxies.

But he'll come back. He always does.

Opening the door to the TARDIS, the Doctor sets his time coordinates for as far away as he can get. He'll come back to check on Martha and Jack, but right now he just needs to get away.

And typically of the TARDIS, especially one still grumpy from being turned into a paradox machine, it does the opposite.

It goes closer.

************

Koschei's eyes light up as he hears the sound. That's the TARDIS. Theta's TARDIS, which was supposed to be theirs, they'd picked it out and everything-

Except the man who steps out isn't Theta at all.

The strange man clearly recognizes him, breathing out his name. "Koschei-"

"Who are you?"

The man's eyes go faraway and sad. "You don't know me. I shouldn't be here. There's something- the paradox machine! It's thinned the barriers between worlds, that's how I'm here! And with my psychic links down for the Archangel Network, and the TARIDS still shaky, she must have read my connection to you instead of where I was trying to go!"

Koschei brushes against his mind in polite, distant contact. It's clumsy, since he's young and inexperienced, but he'd know that anywhere. "Theta. You've..."

"I'm not Theta anymore." He sighs. "They call me the Doctor."

"You regenerated. You... what's going on?"

The Doctor looks at him with wide, sad eyes. "I'm sorry, Koschei. I'm so, so sorry. Theta never comes back for you."

"What?"

"It's been nine hundred years," the Doctor whispers. "I'm sorry."

"But you-"

"I shouldn't be here," the Doctor says. "I shouldn't tell you this. I-"

"No. Stay."

And somehow, the Doctor can't resist. He finds himself sitting on the porch next to Koschei, and then holding the boy's hand.

"Why?" Koschei asks, and the Doctor knows the question. After this day, there's only one question between them.

"I was afraid," the Doctor confesses softly. "I felt- feel- too much for you. I know I'd never... never be more than... Theta, if I was with you. And I wanted to see the universe, so I decided to do it alone, to see just what I could become."

"You left me," Koschei accuses bitterly, and the Doctor nearly laughs at that. Koschei is so young. The hurt is so fresh. It hasn't had time yet, not to fester from pain and rejection to the aching, unending hate it will become.

"Yes. I did. And... I don't know if this helps, Koschei, but it was a mistake." The Doctor hides his face in his hands. "I can't tell you the future, Koschei. All I can tell you is that I'm sorry. And I never..." Oh, this is not a good idea. He ruins all chance of this being a stable time loop saying this. "I never stop loving you, Kos. Never. I regret leaving as soon as I do, and I never, never stop loving you."

"Really?" 

And the question is so soft and young, so very innocent, that the Doctor has to kiss him. He presses his lips to Koschei's, slowly, just once, and tastes everything he knows he'll never have again. His future with this boy went up in flames. Their love is dead. "Really."

That doesn't mean he can't grieve for it, nor does it mean he can't help Koschei, sobbing against his shoulder. He wishes he could go shake some fucking sense into his younger self. Theta gave up the perfect love to chase the most selfish of dreams.

If only the Doctor could see him now, he wouldn't say a word. He would show him.

Show him the memories of the Master's body burning. Show him the guilt and the grief. Show him Koschei's tears.

And then maybe he wouldn't have been such a damned, damned fool.

He wants to take Koschei with him. He wants to give his lover the ride through the universe they should have gotten.

Instead, he wipes away Koschei's tears and kisses him goodbye. One thing they never got before- a proper goodbye.


End file.
